Hello everyone! Happy to be the proud owner of a MC-30c and Calamari Cruiser, and loving the expanded suite of options they bring. The newest one brought to my attention being the option for more ion cannons, since before the only Rebel ship who could carry it was the fun but admittedly vulnerable CR-90 B type, which is actually starting to look like a more and more attractive option given both Ackbar and Rieken, among others.

So Rebels, how can we make the most of this expanding wave of technology? What combinations and strategies make Ion Cannons shine? Discuss! :3

Raiders with overload pulse and screed running interference for avenger seems like its probably the best use of that card. Most ships with no defence tokens will either be killed or severely crippled from such a combo.

If you can expect to get a blue crit, Ion Cannon Batteries are a decently solid choice. Not ground breaking, but also cheap.

Raiders with overload pulse and screed running interference for avenger seems like its probably the best use of that card. Most ships with no defence tokens will either be killed or severely crippled from such a combo.

Of course, this does nothing for the Rebels side of things, which is what was originally requested.

Ion cannon armed MC80s will be able to pick and choose between Raw Damage and Accuracies with an Ackbar Broadside if it is packing SW-7 Ion Cannons... Between the Red and the Blue dice, you might quickly start locking down every token, and then some, and you might want to claw some of that back as damage.

leading shots on an mc80 is nice as well

SW-7 ion cannons on a CR90B.

With a focus fire command, and a double arced target (easy to do with a CR90) that is a guaranteed 6 damage. Not too shabby.

This is becoming a staple of rebel list preparation for me in wave 2:

CR90A - Turbolaser reroute circuits

CR90A - Turbolaser reroute circuits

CR90B - SW7s

(146 points)

For my MC80 I am leaning towards:

MC80 command cruiser, Dodonna, Leading shots, enhanced comms, ECM, Independence

(148 points)

(Keyan, 2x B-wing and HWK-290 in support)

Both of these use the Ion cannon ideas in this thread.

leading shots on an mc80 is nice as well

This. At least for me on the MC-80, when you're (A) throwing a lot of red dice (which have a propensity to miss), (B) your ship is already super expensive, so adding another 8-10 points for a conditional crit trigger is just painting a bigger target on your back, ( C) you can't take gunnery teams, which means you're either only doing one attack (Ackbar) in which case you can only trigger the blue crit effect once, or your front/rear attack only has one blue die (in which case you have an extremely low chance to trigger blue crit effects), unless you reserve a CF dial every turn to add another blue die, and (D) it has no way to guarantee blue crit effects, and only has a CF token reroll if you miss.

The ability to selectively reroll on any ship is not to be underestimated. Just anecdotally, yesterday my brother and I were testing out the ISD and MC-80, and my ISD I (no ECMs) was parked at close range of Ackbar's assault MC-80's starboard side for a turn, with no shields remaining on its front hull zone (Salvation was there... don't get me started...). He rolled six reds and two blues, three of the reds turned up blank, no accuracies (double-hit, hit, crit, hit, hit on the other dice). Six damage, braced down to three, redirect one (Xi7s... boo), two on the front hull (yay Contain!). Pretty much assured his MC-80's doom, as he had no shields after being up close to that ISD for a turn, and Demolisher was closing in from behind. Just for kicks, we pretended he had Leading Shots and tried the reroll (spent one blue die, rerolled the three reds and blue). Two double-hits, one red crit, one blue accuracy. New damage total: hit-hit, hit-hit, hit-hit, hit, crit, crit, accuracy (9 damage). No brace, one redirect, means 8 damage to the hull. I don't remember if that would have wiped the ISD off the board, but it would have been close. It's purely anecdotal, and the reroll was way, way above average... but hey, above-average happens sometimes.

For NK-7/Overload Pulse, I'll be sticking with a CR-90B, myself. Cheaper platform, more maneuverable, 2-4 dice per hull-zone for triggering those crit effects. If the aim is to strip defense tokens, Nym is probably a better choice than NK-7. For slightly more than twice the cost, you get a speed-3 six-hull blue-black dice bomber which strips tokens on similar odds (albeit only on a single dice), but allows the attacker to choose (NK-7 leaves the choice to the defender). Or, for 70 points, run a CR-90B with NK-7 and Nym, and have the CR-90 squadron-command Nym to potentially strip two tokens from a ship per round.

All good suggestions~ I'm looking to get an NK-7 somewhere and using it on the MC-80 Command just seems so deliciously dirty. It combined with a solid Turbolaser like Heavy Turbolaser or the ever popular XI7 and Enhansed Armament. I gotta say Raymus Antilles looks solid with Concentrate Fire, or really any situation with the extra blue die and rerolls for the reds. Shame there's no option for weapons teams of any sort... Defiance tho~